Millennial Investing - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIVP014: Reddit (RDDT): Valuing the Front Page of the Internet w/ Shawn O’Malley & Daniel Mahnke
The discussion centers on Reddit, often described as an internet "hive mind," and its recent transformation into a publicly traded company. Following its 2024 IPO, Reddit has attracted significant interest from investors keen on leveraging its vast user-generated data.
**Reddit's Core Identity and Business Model:**
Reddit boasts over 100 million daily users and 380 million weekly users, organized into over 100,000 "subreddits" or communities. These communities, driven by a democratic upvoting and downvoting system, foster unique cultures and jargon, as exemplified by the infamous WallStreetBets subreddit. This topic-focused, pseudonymous environment allows for genuine, often expert-level, conversations across a myriad of niches, distinguishing it from person-centric platforms like Facebook or X.
Reddit's primary revenue stream is advertising (around 92%), complemented by premium memberships and the sale of digital goods like Reddit Coins. Advertisers can target specific subreddits or use sponsored AMAs (Ask Me Anything) to engage directly with communities. Despite its massive user base, Reddit's average revenue per user (ARPU) is significantly lower than Meta's, indicating substantial untapped monetization potential.
**IPO and Recent Performance:**
Reddit's IPO in 2024 was oversubscribed, raising over $500 million and valuing the company at over $6 billion. The stock initially soared, though the host, having participated in the IPO, sold out quickly, regretting missing its subsequent run. Recently, the stock has experienced a significant correction, falling over 45% from its peak, partly due to Q4 earnings that, while showing triple net income and 71% revenue growth year-over-year, slightly missed analyst user expectations and highlighted traffic volatility linked to Google's search algorithm changes.
**Challenges and Opportunities:**
Key challenges include the 2023 user revolt over API fees for third-party apps, which strained relations with its crucial volunteer moderators, and its dependence on Google search (over 50% of traffic originates from Google). Reddit is addressing the latter with its AI-powered "Reddit Answers" search engine.
Significant growth opportunities lie in:
1. **AI Data Licensing:** Deals with OpenAI and Google, contributing nearly 10% of revenue, leverage Reddit's unique data corpus.
2. **Advertising Enhancements:** Ad revenues grew 60% year-over-year, with click volumes doubling. Reddit is using AI to improve ad targeting and user engagement, capitalizing on its contextual advertising strength (e.g., targeting a hiking subreddit for camping gear).
3. **International Expansion:** Currently, over 40% of users are U.S.-based. Reddit is using AI for content translation (starting with French) to expand globally, with promising user growth in focus markets like France, India, and the Philippines.
4. **Future Monetization Avenues:** Ideas include integrating e-commerce functionalities within subreddits, expanding its developer platform for community-built tools, and enabling paid subreddits to capture revenue from content, including adult content creators currently leveraging platforms like OnlyFans.
**Leadership and Valuation:**
Co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, now in his second tenure, has overseen significant improvements in Reddit's infrastructure and monetization efforts. His compensation in 2023 was nearly $200 million.
The valuation of Reddit is complex due to its nascent profitability and high growth potential. An intrinsic value assessment, even with optimistic assumptions (accelerated international growth, narrowing ARPU gap between U.S. and international users, and operating margins reaching 30% by 2029), suggests the stock is currently fairly valued at $120-$135 per share.
While Reddit has demonstrated strong business acceleration and a path to sustained profitability, its long history of unprofitability and inherent uncertainties (e.g., potential share dilution, Google algorithm changes, economic slowdowns) lead to a cautious outlook. The hosts conclude that while Reddit has shed its "Snapchat-like" unprofitable image and shows potential to emulate Meta's success, it remains a speculative investment. Both hosts plan to add it to their watchlists, noting that a price closer to $100 per share would make it a more attractive investment opportunity, especially as the company's growth prospects and sustained profitability become clearer in the coming quarters.